Between Myself and My Reflection
by Rabe
Summary: Harry revisits Hogwarts for the first time.


**Title:** Between Myself and My Reflection  
**Author:** Rabé  
**Pairings:** None  
**Rating:** PG  
**Length:** One-shot, approximately 2,500 words  
**Warnings:** Angst  
**Summary:** Harry revisits Hogwart's for the first time.  
**Disclaimer:** _Harry Potter_ is the property of J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Warner Brothers. I am making no money from this.  
**Author's Notes:** This story is based off my own visit to a boarding school I used to attend. It was very emotional to write. The title is a lyric from the song Breath No More by Evanescence.

It had been four years. Four years since he had walked these halls. Four years sine he had smelled these smells. Harry was now 20 years old, and visiting Hogwarts for the first time since he had left it after his sixth year. He had been excited to return, but now that he was here some of that excitement had gone. Now there was a twisting in his stomach that he couldn't quite explain.

He walked along the halls that seemed older than time itself. He knew Hogwarts was ancient, and he knew that it hadn't remained the same since the day it was built. It was silly to assume it would remain the way he had known it. Still, to see so many changes made him feel strange. It made him feel like an outsider. Old classrooms were closed up; ones he had never seen were in use. Classes had been rearranged. The students had faces he had never seen.

On the other hand, there were many things that had remained the same. Gryffindors were still in their tower, just as they had always been. This gave him some comfort. He climbed the stairs of his old home, running his hands along the rails, the walls, anything he could touch. Finally, he stood in front of the portrait he would never forget. The fat lady sat in her frame, looking the same as always. Even though the picture hadn't changed, it still felt different, older somehow. She looked him over curiously at first. She didn't even prompt him for the password. Suddenly, recognition lit her eyes, as much as it can in a painting, and she started exclaiming welcomes that Harry didn't pay attention to.

He was focused on what lay beyond the portrait. His mind was flooded with memories of the room on the other side. After she fussed over him a bit longer, Harry granted her a small welcome, and she swung open to let him in. 

The room in front of him was both so familiar and so strange at the same time. The colors were the same, the building was the same, even the furniture was the same, but the arrangement was different; the feel was different.

He roamed through his old common room, occasionally stopping to linger in a place that held a special significance. He stopped in the corner where the armchairs used to be where he, Ron, and Hermione had often congregated to both share secrets of Death Eater activity and to discussion the latest house Quidditch match. He walked by the fire, remembering the conversations with Sirius. He had long ago come to terms with his Godfather's death, but even now the twisting in his stomach tightened.

He passed through the room and started up the stairwell to his old dormitory. He walked slowly, feeling the rails and walls he had never stopped to notice in all the time he was there. He came to the old door and slowly pushed it open. It looked the same as it had the very first time Harry had ever seen it. It was summertime, so the dorms were empty and all ready for the new school year.

His thoughts briefly went back to that night, his first night here in Hogwarts. He remembered busting into this room with Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville with all the excitement of an eleven year old boy in such a wonderful, magical new place. He remembered all the boys rushing to claim beds as their own while he just stood awestruck in the doorway. He remembered feeling for the first time in his life that he was home.

He walked slowly around the room, running his hands over bedposts and window sills, and being both glad and disappointed that no one was there to share this moment with him. He stopped by his old bed, unsure if it was even the same one or if they had been rearranged. Still, he sat down and laid back on it. He stared up at the same canopy he had once stared up at as a wide-eyed, innocent boy full of wonder in his new world. His memory flashed through all his years at Hogwarts right up to the last night he slept is this bed. He had laid there then, looking up as he did now, and wondered if he would ever see this canopy, this room, this castle ever again.

He lay there for several minutes letting his memories wash over him. Finally, with a heavy sight, he rose and walked to the door. He turned back to the room and was amazed at what he saw. There were faces, people in the room. There were trunks, and objects strewn around on every surface. He looked closer, and the faces came into focus. They were people he knew!

He saw Dean sitting on his bed and leaning over his old sketch book, obviously concentrating on his current project. He saw Seamus sprawled across his bed and grinning as he read a the latest Quidditch magazine. He saw Neville bent over a book, most likely about herbology, and worrying the edge of a page as he studied. He held his breath and looked over to Ron's old bed. There he sat, teenage Ron, lanky as ever, sitting on the edge of his bed and talking animatedly. Teenage Ron was facing Harry's bed, and he looked over half expecting to see his own teenage self in avid conversation, but his bed was empty. He saw his trunk and his things, and even his unmade bed, but he could only be there as his current self. He watched Ron talking and remembered what it was like to be there listening.

It was like being back there, in that time. Harry felt a rush of happiness to be back and a sinking feeling of sadness as he realized that it was only a memory. He looked sadly at the scene in front of him. He looked all around the room and tried to imprint it as hard as he could into his memory. Sure, it had come from there in the first place, but Harry was so afraid that he might one day lose it. He was determined to catch every detail. The longer he stood there, the more the images began to fade. Not wanting to see the room empty and lifeless once again, he took one last look around at his childhood. He stepped out of the door still looking into the room and forced himself to close the door on the memory.

He stood for a minute with his hand still on the doorknob and his forehead resting on the door. He felt as if closing the door to that room had been closing the door to that part of his life. It was a strange feeling, knowing it was over. Of course he hadn't been there in years, but it still seemed so real before now. He only remembered it as he had left it, as it had been his. He could still go there any time in his memories.

Now, it was different. Now he saw how it had changed. He saw it as it was now, without him, without his friends. It was now just a memory, a part of his life long ended.

He left his old dormitory, and walked back through the common room to the portrait. This time, as he passed he saw more memories, more ghosts. He saw Ron and Hermione sitting by the fire. Ron looked harassed, and Hermione was pointing at a parchment that must have been his homework. He saw an ever-excited Colin fiddling with his camera off in one corner. He saw Lavender and Parvati gossiping and giggling in another. He looked around and saw old classmates passing through to the stairs, the faces of people he recognized but never really knew filled the room. Fred and George were in the middle of the room surrounding by a group of amazed-looking younger students, some of which where showing disturbing signs of being the latest guinea pigs of the twins' research.

Harry walked through the room, his memories all around him. They were sad, but comforting in a way. Harry smiled as he looked at all of his old friends. He walked back out of the portrait hole as if nothing had changed, as if it was that time, and as if it all still existed.

He found himself wandering around the castle, visiting every place that had been significant to him. He walked passed his old classrooms, some now closed off. He continued to see the ghosts of people he had known. Images walked through the halls, and passed in and out of rooms that weren't really open.

He walked past the huge tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and stopped at what he knew to be the entrance to the Room of Requirement. He passed back and forth three times, simply thinking, "I need to remember," and not knowing what would be there when he went in. A door appeared, and he pushed it open. He found himself in the same training room he had used for the DA.

He saw more memories, these even more vivid than the others. He wondered briefly if it wasn't the magic of the room more than his memories this time. He walked among the members, watching them duel. He caught himself nearly giving instructions a few times, before he turned, and again left the memory behind.

He felt as if he could fill the castle with his memories and make it his again. He felt as if he could return it to the way it had been. He walked back through the castle, letting himself go back to those times. He saw the familiar sights. He felt the familiar emotions. He even heard the echoes of voices ringing through the halls. He wanted to remember it forever. Not only the feeling he had just now, the feeling of reliving, but the memories.

He never wanted to forget. He wanted to always be able to recall the feelings, the sights, the sounds. He wanted to remember the feelings he had then and the feelings he had now. He wanted to remember the emotions of his first visit, the tingle in his fingers as he ran his hands over the old walls, the way the hairs stood up on the back of his neck when he could almost feel the people around him.

He continued through the castle, wandering around empty rooms and picturing them as they had been. He felt almost angry to see everything so different. How dare they change it! They had ruined some of his favorite places! He had to remind himself that it was the way of things. It was a different time, everything had changed. He had changed. Instead of angry, this simply made him hurt. There were so many emotions, but sadness seemed to be winning. The sadness of the visit itself and the sadness of coming to terms with the fact that all of it was over.

Still unsettled, he arrived back at the entrance hall. The giant doors to the Great Hall stood open. The room was empty, and Harry allowed himself to go in.

He found himself walking automatically to the seat he had kept for six years. He sat down and looked around, trying to hold on to the emotions. As confusing as they were, he wouldn't give them up for anything.

He looked down his old table, seeing the faces of classmates as they chatted away during meals. He looked around the hall and saw the students of other classes filling their tables. He even felt wistful looking back to the old Slytherin table, where so many of his enemies had once sat. He saw them, Draco, Crabbe, Goyle, and Pansy among others. Harry even felt comforted to see them, just as they had been. It made everything feel more real. He could even feel some of his old anger towards them as he sat trying to remember. It was strange to see everyone as there were then, innocent, before the war had turned them into what they had become.

He knew many of the people he had seen throughout the castle where still alive, but none of them were the same. He wasn't the same. It all seemed like a different world.

His gaze continued and fell upon the teachers' table, sitting high at the end of the room. He saw the faces of his teachers along it. He saw McGonagall, dependable and always there. He saw Snape glaring at him as usual. He saw Hagrid banging his fist on the table as he tried to explain something to Flitwick. Of all the Defense teachers, Harry was surprised to see Remus sitting there smiling warmly at him. He guessed it made sense. After all, it was how he had first known him.

He looked to the center of the table to the Headmaster's seat. His chest tightened as he saw Dumbledore sitting there and staring straight at him. Even the Dumbledore of his memories seemed to be able to see right into him. Harry felt for a minute that he was looking at the real Dumbledore, and Dumbledore was looking back knowing what he was thinking and feeling, almost giving his permission for Harry's memories to be there. Harry absurdly hoped that he was real. Then Dumbledore smiled, and he saw only a ghost of that old twinkle in only a ghost of his memory.

Smiling sadly, Harry rose and walked out of the Great Hall. He walked across the grounds, stopping at the edge of the Forbidden Forest where Hagrid's old hut used to be. He walked along the lake and by the greenhouses. He spent a lot of time walking around the Quidditch pitch, feeling the posts, wandering the stands, sitting in the locker rooms, and reliving crushing defeats and great victories.

He knew it was coming time for him to leave; he could feel it. He had seen what he wanted to see, and he was afraid that staying any longer would ruin everything he was feeling. He knew that try as he might, he could never make it his again. It was time for new students to make their homes there. The castle had to let each generation go, and so Harry had to let it go. It would always be part of him; it would always be in his memories, but he could never make it the way it was.

He slowly made his was to the gate as the ghosts of his memories slowly faded around him. He passed through the gate and took one last good look on the castle that had been his first real home. He turned and made his way back to Hogsmeade, deciding to go on foot to give himself time to think. He made his way down the path, every once in a while looking back over his shoulder to see the castle fading into the distance until one time he looked back and could no longer see it. Feeling a bit empty, he made his way back to the inn.


End file.
